The category of spectacle is central to film theory, and yet is often taken for granted. This class will interrogate the status of cinematic spectacle, assessing its significance in the history of film theory, and in critical and cultural theories as they pertain to cinema. Is spectacle an inherent component of the cinematic apparatus? Or it is a question of style? How can we read spectacle historically, ideologically and aesthetically? In addressing these questions, we will read classical film theory, Marxism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralist theories and more; considering where spectacle fits into their various accounts of image, narrative, spectatorship, aesthetics, form and style. Topics will include cinematic specificity, realism, trauma, queer theory and technologies of vision. We will view a range of film genres, texts and movements in which spectacle has been a contested term: musicals, action films, European art film, South East Asian new waves and Third Cinemas; directors such as Sternberg, Powell, Wong Kar-Wai, Fassbinder, Sembène and Jarman. Readings include Bazin, Adorno, Freud, Crary, Doane, Foster, Chow.

Required texts

Note: You may or may not wish to purchase all of these texts. All will be available on reserve in the library, and we will discuss in advance what chapters will be covered week by week.

course reading packet on WebCT Edmund Burke,A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulSiegfried Kracauer,Theory of FilmAndré Bazin, What is Cinema? Guy Debord,The Society of the SpectacleLinda Williams,Hard CoreJonathan Crary,Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle and Modern CultureRey Chow,Primitive PassionsMatthew Tinkcom, Working Like a Homosexual

Requirements

Written assignments comprise weekly one-page response papers, due by 5pm each Wednesday, and a final 20-25 page seminar paper, due December 16th.

I need to hear from anyone who has a disability, which may require some modification of seating, testing or other class requirements so that appropriate arrangements may be made. Please contact me during my office hours.

Schedule

26 August – Introduction

I: Spectacular theories

1-2 September – Beauty and the sublime

Screening: Hero (Zhang, 2002)

Readings: Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement (selections)

Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (selections)

8-9 September – Classical film theory, ontology and the image

Screening: Roma, Città Aperta (Rossellini, 1945)

Readings: Siegfried Kracauer, Theory of Film

André Bazin, What is Cinema?

15-16 September –FrankfurtSchooland after

Screening: Footlight Parade (Bacon, 1933)

Readings: Siegfried Kracauer, “The Mass Ornament”

Walter Benjamin, “A Small History of Photography” and Artwork Essay

Miriam Hansen, “Benjamin, Cinema and Experience: ‘The Blue Flower in the Land of Technology”

22-23 September – Marxism and postmodernism

Screening: The Hole (Tsai, 1998)

Readings: Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

Fredric Jameson, “Introduction” to Signatures of the Visible

T.J. Clark, “Afflicted Powers: The State, the Spectacle and September 11”